First published in The Age on September 21, 1997

Party time for new publicans

MOST Australians would be lucky to win a chicken in a local football club raffle. But a syndicate of five people from Moorabbin yesterday won the pub — the Railway Hotel in Linton.

A large crowd gathers to hear the raffle drawn.Credit:Mario Borg

The tiny sheep-farming town, 33 kilometres south-west of Ballarat, came alive as 3000 people gathered in the main street for the draw.

Cartoon published on September 21, 1997.Credit:Andrew Dyson

Mrs Maysie Hart, 90, said she hadn’t seen anything like It since electric power was switched on — and that was in 1939. In the 1920s she worked as a cook at the hotel.

“In all my years of being here, I’ve never seen such a crowd,” she said.

The freehold of the $135,000 Railway Hotel was raffled by Buninyong Football Club, which wants to build a new sports and leisure complex and club rooms. The 2000 tickets at $250 each sold three weeks ago with entries from as far away as Denmark, London and New Zealand.

Buninyong Football Club stands to make a $250,000 profit from the raffle.

The club president, Mr Bob Crowe, said he thought all the club’s 100 players and their families turned out for yesterday’s draw, as did most of Linton’s 500 residents, a large group of Vietnam Veterans Motorcycle Club members and tourists.

Mr Crowe thanked the ticket holders, most of whom were in the crowd, for taking part. In what has been dubbed the Raffle of the Century. “We’re only a battling club and I think this’ll put us on our feet,” Mr Crowe said.

The federal member for Ballarat, Mr Michael Ronaldson, drew the winning ticket from a red cement mixer on the back of a truck.

“Someone today is going to have friends they never had before,” Mr Ronaldson said.

The new owners are a syndicate from Moorabbin — ticket number 638. Second prize was an oak barrel of Jim Beam and third prize a pallet of Victoria Bitter stubbles.

Nobody in the crowd seemed to mind that the prize winners weren’t at the draw. Late yesterday, organisers said the winners were on their way to Linton to party with locals.

The Buninyong Football Club yesterday began selling tickets — 1000 at $1000 each — for the raffle of the $580,000 Merinda Hotel in Bowen in north Queensland. The draw is set for 31 January.

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